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Curious why you guys didn't do physical card/chip/memory kit inspections to see if there was any *real* difference between OC and non-OC'd cards besides stock BIOS settings and some new cooler stickers. Would've been nice to see some core revision #s, mfg. dates and memory IC pics.

The real test is whether the OC'd version parts have significantly more headroom than the vanilla versions that for the most part, can OC as high as these OC versions with ease.

The only factor left which you touched on but didn't see you follow up on was the clock speed of the shader core. Initially I was under the impression the shader core could only be adjusted by altering the BIOS but a few others have mentioned the shader core scales proportionately with core OCs. Reply

both your assertions on shader core are true to a degree. the shader core can only be adjusted on its own through the bios. but increasing core clock through the driver will increase the shader clock speed as well. Reply

I'm missing the Gainward card (Bliss 8800GTS Golden Sample). I bought it four weeks ago, so it definetely IS available. It is running at 550/880/1350, so it theoretically fits the gap between the BFG and the EVGA... Reply

Seems to me like the article should have also investigated the potential of the cards to overclock beyond their factory overclocked settings. Then maybe it would have had to say "in spite of the fact that this card offers the best cooling it doesn't come with the highest clock speeds, which is a bit of a disappointment especially for the most expensive card of this roundup" about the Sparkle card, because maybe it would have turned out to have the most headroom out of all of the cards.

Given that nearly every CPU and video card review published on this site includes an overclocking section, it seems odd that this article did not. Reply

You do have a point about the Sparkle card -- but we already tested a card with this cooler back when the 8800 GTX launched. Overclocking wasn't significantly better than stock cooled cards.

Generally, we would not recommend buying factory overclocked cards with the intention of manually overclocking them. You'll save a lot of money and get good results by going with stock cards and manually setting fan speed to 100%. Alternately, the savings can be used to invest in exotic cooling.

The value in these cards is in their factory settings and users not interested in this should avoid them in my opinion. Reply

There's not much worth testing on overclocking high-end cards, IMHO. They're all built using the reference design, they're not going to overclock significantly differently with just different cooling. Reply

I was somewhat surprised to notice that in many of the benchmarks, the performance advantage of the GTX cards over the GTS cards scaled pretty consistantly with their price premium. For example the EVGA GTX often performed about 25% better than the EVGA GTS card with costs about 25% less.

It seems that in the past, the performance difference was much smaller than the price diference between the top two ultra high end models. Reply

There is one angle we weren't able to cover -- the difference between oc'd and stock GTX cards might have a higher impact in future games ... Certainly we can only recommend cards based on the tests we have available. And while you put it a little more bluntly, our recommendation reflects the fact that spending more money on highly overclocked GTX parts does not net a proportionate return. Reply

What really is the price premium for it? The XFX card is about $620 at slightly lower clock speeds with stock cooling.

I'm also not a fan of the step up program the way it is now. Maybe if they extend it a year or so I'd be more impressed. As it is, it's only really valuable if you buy a card right before faster ones come out. Reply

I find it a bit dubious that you would give the editors award to a card based on price ?! That and the fact that eVGA does all this using stock cooling ? Why no mention of RMA / replacement 'issues' ?

Look guys, I can write my own reviews, on OC'd cards, and choose the best card based on the prettiest graphics, that would not make me 'right'. I thought the whole idea was to benchmark the cards, and pick the card based on the best performer that was able to achieve these speeds stably ?

Now, since we've already been thrown askew, by the obvious 'conclusion' here why dont we talk about part replacement, or the 'gee, I'm already paying $550 for a graphics card, but another $150 is just too much for the best' factor. Why even pick any of these, and why not pick a 7600GT, because it is obviously MUCH cheaper than all these "overpriced cards' . . . Starting to see my point ?

This is a roundup of 8800 series cards. Given that the largest performance improvement over stock for the GTX was less than 10% (average of maybe 5% at 2560x1600, and less at any lower resolution), and considering the EVGA card was at best about 5% faster than the BFG (and margin of error is at least 2% in testing), would you recommend people spend $620 for the EVGA ACS3 GTX card over the $580 BFG card? We wouldn't - and both companies come with lifetime warranties.

Or are you implying the Sparkle card is the "best"? Because that's not really supported by the article in any way. Cooler? Perhaps, but only with lower clocks. Quieter? Yes, but $150 for a quieter card while useful to some isn't what we would generally recommend. It's an interesting card, but with very limited availability, a higher price, and warranty/support that's a bit questionable for much of our audience, it is at best an intriguing card.

The EVGA GTS card shows much better performance improvements, simply because the system is becoming more GPU limited (in some games) at higher resolutions. In the end, the awards given out are for what we feel are the best 8800 GTX and GTS 640 cards; we certainly wouldn't recommend the GTX to many users out there, but if you're in the market for a GTX anyway, the BFG is a good card, and the EVGA is a close second (or it's first if you don't care about price and think you'll see the extra 5% performance). Reply

Well, If the margin for error is truely 2%, then sure, the speed difference could only be 3% more in favor of eVGAs card vs the BFG card, however, this also works in the reverse, it could be as high as 7% faster.

For me, the process of buying anything comes down to, getting the best I can possibly get for the amount of money I am prepared to spend. Speed does play a factor in my purchasing descission somewhat, but takes a back seat to things like: what is the companies reputation for dealing with their customers, how much do I really want to spend on other components that are required for the part (IE, will my current power suppy handle the added load of product I am considering purchasing, and if not, do I really want to buy another one), etc.

However, all this being said, I belived this to be an article about finding the fastest 8800 card, and praising it, not 'compromising'. You, all at anandtech, just like me are entitled to your own opinions though . . .

Personally, I would not even consider one of these cards, they cost way more than I'm willing to spend, and I consider myself a very serious gamer, BUT, if I had the cash to blow, it would most likely buy something from eVGA, and something fast. This is not to say that sparkle does not have a good reputation, because from my experiences, and what I've read, they treat their customers very well, but the combination of the TEC unit on the card (drawing too much power, and it is still relitively new technology in computers), I would probably balk at buying it. They do make very good (or have in the past) ATI cards though. Reply

I feel the 40 extra dollars is worth it for the EVGa card. While they both have lifetime warranties, EVGa's covers overclocking. So you could buy the card and push it farther then it currently is. You are also allowed to switch the Heatsink without the warranty being voided, as long as you replace it with the stock one if you need to RMA. Reply

I'd also like to add that our recommendations are based on what we see as the most important aspects of the product.

The EVGA GTX is absolutely the fastest card we've got. If that's what you want, the article is clear on which card you should buy.

Our goal is to provide the best information possible throughout the article so that everyone interested in the topic can make their own decisions based on the data. We hope our recommendations will be helpful to people, but they are no substitute for the rest of the article. Reply